November 2013

Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally and has equal decision-making power. Occupy Oakland’s General Assembly uses a participatory decision-making process appropriately called, “Occupy Oakland’s Collective Decision-Making Process.” Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.

Autonomous Action & the General Assembly
The bulk of the work of Occupy Oakland does NOT happen in the General Assembly. It happens in various committees, caucuses, and associated groups that report back to the general assembly. Everyone participating in Occupy Oakland should be part of at least one associated group. Occupy Oakland encourages autonomous actions that do not require consensus from the General Assembly. This encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.

The Post Office has put the Berkeley Post Office up for sale!! Come and help plan our next actions in defense of our post office and against privatization.

Four weeks ago we learned that perfidious Post Office Executives, who only the week before had sent a letter to the Berkeley City Council offering to negotiate until at least November 12th, had had CBRE (Richard Blum’s company) list the downtown Berkeley Post Office for sale.

The Oakland City Council will soon consider whether to endorse Richmond’s strategy to use eminent domain as a tool to fight foreclosure and study whether it should do the same. The council will take up the issue at a 4:30 p.m. special meeting on Nov. 5 that was requested by Council members Desley Brooks, Larry Reid and Noel Gallo.

Richmond’s effort to do something constructive about mortgage relief for large numbers of homeowners in Richmond is being supported by Strike Debt Bay Area (Facebook and webpage) and ACCE.

What the new globalized, high-tech imperialism means for the class struggle in the U.S.

http://www.lowwagecapitalism.com/

3rd in series of three classes – if you’d like a copy of the book to read in advance of the class, please message Terri Kay to work out getting a copy to you. We will cover section 3 of 3 this week. If you missed session 1 or 2, no worries, you’ll be able to follow the discussion with no problem.

Zone for the Community, not the Developers
We need you to speak or be a supportive audience member.

SAVE THE BERKELEY POST OFFICE!

Over 75 people came to the last Planning Commission meeting–60 spoke FOR the Zoning Overlay and only 3 spoke for the developers. At this next meeting, the Commission will finalize its recommendation to the City Council.

WE MUST AGAIN BE THERE TO SPEAK FOR THE ZONING OVERLAY!

Berkeley’s Planning Commission and City Council propose to place a Zoning Overlay on Berkeley’s existing Historic District. This area includes Berkeley’s Old City Hall, New City Hall, Berkeley High School, Veteran’s Memorial Hall, and the Berkeley Main Post Office at 2000 Allston Way. The Zoning Overlay would limit the area’s use to community, cultural, and civic purposes. It will make the Post Office less vulnerable to developers and help the USPS realize the value that Berkeley places on its public services.

Berkeley’s historic Civic Center District is our Public Commons. Let’s protect it with appropriate zoning. Although the uses of buildings change, the end result must be a stronger community, not a richer real-estate developer. Let us show that we are a city of caring citizens in community.

As we step up a concerted transition to alternative energy, Big Oil lurches towards its last gasp: exponential development of fossil fuel infrastructure at West Coast ports for transport, storage, refining and shipping to Asian markets.

The WesPac Pittsburg Energy Infrastructure Project would transform Pittsburg (a dormant industrial, residential area in our Northern San Francisco Bay) into a major crude oil receiving, storage and shipping facility. WesPac develops, constructs, owns and operates infrastructure throughout North America for petroleum products handling, and Pittsburg is the next target for modernization and reactivation of its existing marine terminal and oil storage and transfer systems.

Plans are to move Canadian tar sands crude to the Chevron and Shell refineries through pipelines and extended rail systems, load it onto ships and send it to Asia to the tune of 242,000 barrels per day. This is the same dirty crude slated for the Keystone XL pipeline, a project drawing widespread opposition. Even dirtier crude oil would be shipped to the WesPac facility from southern California. Oil would also come from a huge deposit in North Dakota, which, like the California oil, would be extracted by fracking.

Spills, leaks, blow-ups, smog, gas, fires (like the one in Richmond), soil contamination, prolonged effects on area air and water quality and health effects such as asthma, birth defects, and cancer, loom. Increased pollution from idling trucks, rail cars and ships — affecting wildlife, marshes and wetlands, the shoreline, polluted water in the delta (water used for drinking and agriculture), and decreased property values — will result. Pittsburg will become a fossil fuel backwater, and critically, greenhouse gas emissions, warming the climate, and threatening the integrity of our global ecosystem, jeopardize us all. Do we want the Bay Area to be the locus of this scheme to expand fossil fuel extraction and use? Do we want the health of Pittsburg and North Bay residents to be undermined by these environmental threats? And can we stand by as life on our planet is under attack?

Stand with Pittsburg and the Bay Area to Say “NO” to

Expansion of Fossil Fuel Infrastructure on our Bay

Come to the Berkeley Ecology Center to meet the groups forming to fight this and get involved in the upcoming actions and campaigns. We’ll hear the background and plan the backlash.

Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally and has equal decision-making power. Occupy Oakland’s General Assembly uses a participatory decision-making process appropriately called, “Occupy Oakland’s Collective Decision-Making Process.” Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.

Autonomous Action & the General Assembly
The bulk of the work of Occupy Oakland does NOT happen in the General Assembly. It happens in various committees, caucuses, and associated groups that report back to the general assembly. Everyone participating in Occupy Oakland should be part of at least one associated group. Occupy Oakland encourages autonomous actions that do not require consensus from the General Assembly. This encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.

Why did BART and AC Transit union officials put their faith in Democratic politicians rather than reaching out aggressively to labor and the community? Why did ATU 1555 leaders call on Jerry Brown to invoke a 60-day cooling-off period to suspend the right to strike? How can we defend the right to strike for transit workers, when Democratic state politicians are drafting legislation to make such strikes illegal?

Why did ILWU officials turn their backs on their union’s militant history and direct their members to cross a picket line of port truckers and community supporters? How can ILWU members reclaim the solidarity their union badly needs. Longshoremen are locked out at two northwest ports. Scabs are doing their work. And negotiations for the ILWU’s master contract for all West Coast ports is just around the bend.

Has the labor movement lost its class struggle moorings? In its heyday unions fought for the unemployed and underemployed, for immigrant workers and youth, against racism and home foreclosures. What can be done to ignite such struggle today, forge real solidarity, and beat the bosses’ barrage of union busting?

Come hear speakers involved in these worker struggles:

George Figueroa- Strike Coordinator of the successful July BART strike for ATULocal 1555*, now being victimized by BART.

Clarence Thomas- Co-Chair of the Million Worker March, Executive Board member of ILWU 10*

Jack Heyman- Chair of TWSC and an organizer of the 1984 longshore anti-apartheid ship boycott, the May Day 2008 anti-war West Coast port shutdown and the 2010 Bay Area ports protest for justice for Oscar Grant

Five weeks ago we learned that perfidious Post Office Executives, who only the week before had sent a letter to the Berkeley City Council offering to negotiate until at least November 12th, had had CBRE (Richard Blum’s company) list the downtown Berkeley Post Office for sale.

Last week the Planning Commission passed on to the Berkeley City a proposed Zoning Ordinance that would make the Post Office property less desirable to potential purchasers of the capitalist variety.

Come and help plan our next actions in defense of our post office and against privatization.

Strike Debt Bay Area’s “Politics of Debt” book discussion group will get together in downtown Oakland next Wednesday evening, November 13th, to discuss the first half of the book, including the following chapters:

Introduction: Fighting Our Way Out of the Financial Maze

Section 1. The Real Life Impact of Financialization on the 99%
Chapter 1. Heads They Win, Tails We Lose
Chapter 2. The Bailout: It Didnâ€™t Work, Itâ€™s Still Going On, and Itâ€™s Making Things Worse

Fighting the proposed curfew in Oakland. Protesting in Sacramento on O22. Demanding that Kamala Harris investigate the death of Alan Blueford and all other victims of police violence here in California. Speaking out against the militarization of police.

Our General Assembly is a participatory gathering of Oakland community members and beyond, where everyone who shows up is treated equally and has equal decision-making power. Occupy Oakland’s General Assembly uses a participatory decision-making process appropriately called, “Occupy Oakland’s Collective Decision-Making Process.” Our Assembly and the process we have collectively cultivated strives to reach agreement while building community.

Autonomous Action & the General Assembly
The bulk of the work of Occupy Oakland does NOT happen in the General Assembly. It happens in various committees, caucuses, and associated groups that report back to the general assembly. Everyone participating in Occupy Oakland should be part of at least one associated group. Occupy Oakland encourages autonomous actions that do not require consensus from the General Assembly. This encourages political activity that is decentralized and welcomes diverse voices and actions into the movement.

Six weeks ago we learned that perfidious Post Office Executives, who only the week before had sent a letter to the Berkeley City Council offering to negotiate until at least November 12th, had had CBRE (Richard Blum’s company) list the downtown Berkeley Post Office for sale.

Last week the Planning Commission passed on to the Berkeley City a proposed Zoning Ordinance that would make the Post Office property less desirable to potential purchasers of the capitalist variety. We are still waiting for action on this from the City Council.

Come and help plan our next actions in defense of our post office and against privatization. We want to send a message to CBRE, the Post Office and Berkeley politicians that the sale will not be tolerated!

To brainstorm how to implement the principles and practices of Restorative Justice throughout the City of Oakland that will facilitate Oakland becoming a restorative city. To develop a plan of action designed to empower citizens, eradicate violence, and build community and relationships by introducing, utilizing, implementing, and maintaining ongoing restorative justice circle processes in neighborhoods, schools, families, churches, synagogues, government, justice system, hospitals, unions, and workplaces citywide until it becomes a way of life. To have restorative conversations become the cornerstone for addressing conflict and harms, promoting understanding and collaboration, celebrating Oakland’s rich diversity, and changing the culture throughout the City of Oakland and beyond.

Please join us at this initial meeting to indicate your interest, lend your voice and ideas, suggest who else needs to be a part of the discussion, and to strategize about next steps in the development of a plan of action. We will discuss a proposal that this project become a collaborative effort of the Alameda County Restorative Juvenile Justice Task Force.

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